Ammu
This was one of those one off experiences. It is in direct contrast to the first incident in this series. This too is about Self esteem, just that in this perhaps mine took a beating!
This was my first and last attempt at getting a maid from a service provider, an agency that arranged for such and allied services. It was one of those expensive propositions since it covered the agencies overheads too. However I went for it thinking I’ll go in for a professional help.
We had to go pick Ammu up from the agency’s office. There was this pretty poised girl dressed in one of those very hip top and jeans waiting for us I thought it was one of the girls working at the agency but it turned out that was ‘Ammu’ the girl we had gone to pick. We were quite impressed with Ammu, though she did not seem too happy getting into the Maruti 800. She enquired enroute if we had another car too!
However, I think the beautifully landscaped campus seemed to compensate for the disappointed, as she exclaimed ‘oh you live here!?’in disbelief! I sighed in relief a bit too early , as she walked into our 2 bedroom flat she asked where her room was .The look on her face when I told she would be sharing one of the rooms with my daughter had to be seen to be believed!
I had to provide extra cupboard space for to keep her clothes as the shelf that all the other maids used was inadequate for her rather extensive collection of clothes. As the days rolled by her collection of clothes almost gave me an inferiority complex. Her last assignment according to her was in home of an upcoming starlet and apparently she was sort of a secretary to her and was expected to dress accordingly.
Within a month of her coming she was grumbling that the room was too small for her as she was not able to do her exercises there! I promised to rearrange the furniture in the room the following Sunday so that she had more space, or else, I told her she could use the semi enclosed balcony.
Sunday morning I had hardly finished my bed tea when I find Ammu standing with all her luggage packed wanting to leave. Her reason for leaving was that she was not used to working in such a small house and she was used to working in bungalows. Well I had no answer to that. I agreed she could leave but asked her to wait till 10 o clock till the agency opened, so that, I could leave her back where I collected her from. But she insisted on leaving on her own immediately. By then I was also quite irritated so I let her go, though in normal course I would have been concerned about letting a young girl go on her own. I asked her if was confident of finding her way, she said she had relatives whose house she knew the way to, and she wanted to go immediately.
Later in the day I went to clean my room and to my shock, I found that the gold chain, bangle and earring I had removed previous day were missing. I got apprehensive and checked all the rooms and found a brand new wrist watch, couple of unstitched dress material, and 3 to 4 sweaters missing. I was fuming mad but, there was nothing I could do. Ammu did not go back the agency. Agency refused to take any responsibility except for promising to give me another maid without charging service charges this time. I was in mood to hire from an agency another time.
That was my first experience of a maid stealing things from home. I did not have a habit of keeping things under lock and key. My mother would keep cautioning me that one of these days I would learn a lesson for such carelessness. Well Ammu proved her right.
This was one of those one off experiences. It is in direct contrast to the first incident in this series. This too is about Self esteem, just that in this perhaps mine took a beating!
This was my first and last attempt at getting a maid from a service provider, an agency that arranged for such and allied services. It was one of those expensive propositions since it covered the agencies overheads too. However I went for it thinking I’ll go in for a professional help.
We had to go pick Ammu up from the agency’s office. There was this pretty poised girl dressed in one of those very hip top and jeans waiting for us I thought it was one of the girls working at the agency but it turned out that was ‘Ammu’ the girl we had gone to pick. We were quite impressed with Ammu, though she did not seem too happy getting into the Maruti 800. She enquired enroute if we had another car too!
However, I think the beautifully landscaped campus seemed to compensate for the disappointed, as she exclaimed ‘oh you live here!?’in disbelief! I sighed in relief a bit too early , as she walked into our 2 bedroom flat she asked where her room was .The look on her face when I told she would be sharing one of the rooms with my daughter had to be seen to be believed!
I had to provide extra cupboard space for to keep her clothes as the shelf that all the other maids used was inadequate for her rather extensive collection of clothes. As the days rolled by her collection of clothes almost gave me an inferiority complex. Her last assignment according to her was in home of an upcoming starlet and apparently she was sort of a secretary to her and was expected to dress accordingly.
Within a month of her coming she was grumbling that the room was too small for her as she was not able to do her exercises there! I promised to rearrange the furniture in the room the following Sunday so that she had more space, or else, I told her she could use the semi enclosed balcony.
Sunday morning I had hardly finished my bed tea when I find Ammu standing with all her luggage packed wanting to leave. Her reason for leaving was that she was not used to working in such a small house and she was used to working in bungalows. Well I had no answer to that. I agreed she could leave but asked her to wait till 10 o clock till the agency opened, so that, I could leave her back where I collected her from. But she insisted on leaving on her own immediately. By then I was also quite irritated so I let her go, though in normal course I would have been concerned about letting a young girl go on her own. I asked her if was confident of finding her way, she said she had relatives whose house she knew the way to, and she wanted to go immediately.
Later in the day I went to clean my room and to my shock, I found that the gold chain, bangle and earring I had removed previous day were missing. I got apprehensive and checked all the rooms and found a brand new wrist watch, couple of unstitched dress material, and 3 to 4 sweaters missing. I was fuming mad but, there was nothing I could do. Ammu did not go back the agency. Agency refused to take any responsibility except for promising to give me another maid without charging service charges this time. I was in mood to hire from an agency another time.
That was my first experience of a maid stealing things from home. I did not have a habit of keeping things under lock and key. My mother would keep cautioning me that one of these days I would learn a lesson for such carelessness. Well Ammu proved her right.
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